Saddest Moment On A TV 📺 Show

Hotch's wife getting killed on Criminal Minds.

There’s a Futurama episode about Fry’s dog. Fry was frozen in a pod by accident and 2000 and now lives in the year 2999.

So he ends up finding his dog who has been frozen all this time too. The whole episode is him debating whether or not he wants to unfreeze the dog and there’s flashbacks of their relationship.

In the end, he decides not to unfreeze the dog because he thinks the dog probably forgot about him, found a new home and had a happy life.

The la Well I think it’s this misconception by heterosexuals that educating inclusivity and LGBT diversity is bringing drag queens into school to teach them that “queer” culture is not weird or taboo.

I don’t know what else could be the reason for turning drag queens into clowns for kids.

The last minute of the episode shows a flashback timeline of dog in the year waiting for him alone until he died in the streets.

Scrubs - "Where do you think we are?"

Oh shit I accidentally pasted my thoughts from another thread into here lol.

The Wire. All of it.

Knots Landing - 1987: Laura Avery Sumner (played by the lovely Constance McCashin) driving away from her friends and family in Knots Landing, so she could 'die with dignity' at a hospice, since there was no cure for her brain tumor. It was a special 2 hour episode to commemorate their 200th episode. She should have won an Emmy for her acting in this.

This began the "purge" of older actors and actresses leaving the show so the writers could bring in younger cast members and new storylines to keep the show in the top 10. Once they got rid of McCashin, veteran actress Julie Harris and then Donna Mills left the series in the next couple of seasons.

Edith Bunker rape.

Johnny Carson’s goodbye on his last Tonight Show in 1992.

When Leo McGarry died on The West Wing. John Spencer who played McGarry had died prior to the episode. He was perfect in his role as Chief of Staff in my opinion.

There is a fantastic Finnish show on Netflix called Bordertown and the wife dying of a brain tumor on that was horribly sad.

Edith Bunker wasn't raped; it was attempted rape.

When Dorothy got married to Blanche’s uncle and left GG.

“There were no survivors.”

When Blair & Jo graduated from Eastland in 1983.

When Laura Linney’s son found the garage of the gifts she gave him for after she’s dead and gone on the Big C

Mad Men: When Don and Betty Draper explain to Sally and Bobby that they're getting divorced.

Mad Men: Don calls Betty after learning from Sally that Betty has cancer.

The last episode of The Shield.

NYPD Blue - when the Jimmy Smits character died.

Final scene of Breaking Bad where shot Walt touches the machine, then dies to the end of the song "My Baby Blue." ....

The red wedding

Derek Shepherd’s death on Grey’s Anatomy.

Totally agree about Dorothy leaving GG. When they all keep looking for her to come back like she did before, I sob.

Mac Corey’s death on Another World. It really hurts when the person playing the character dies in real life.

The diet Mugg.root beer sponsored Full house or something.

I guess it's kind of happy-sad, but in the last moments of "Desperate Housewives"... Mrs. McCluskey dying at the same time we see Julie giving birth, set against Johnny Mathis' "Wonderful Wonderful." I absolutely cried.

The saddest moment on All in the Family is Beverly LaSalle’s brutal death and Edith’s heart wrenching reaction.

When Lori, Glen and Carl died on The Walking Dead

When Dean Winchester died on Supernatural

Ozark - Ben and Wendy on their road trip.

The two of them in the diner followed by Wendy speaking to Marty

I’m not being specific in case people haven’t watched Ozark and, if you haven’t, you should.

When Lady Ashleigh and Luke were shot to death during the Moldavian massacre. 😭

Cherry's death on China Beach, mid-second season.

As the sweet, earnest "little sis"-type character -- beloved by everyone on the base -- her death would been have sad, no matter what. (the only reason she'd joined the Red Cross was to look for her loser, AWOL/heroin-dealer brother). But the WAY it played out was a total mind-fuck.

Cherry & a newly-arrived "Donut Dolly" got stuck out a remote firebase when Tet offensive was launched. They spent the entire night (episode) in a bunker with two soldiers, taking heavy fire, and were almost overrun at one point. The new girl was completely hysterical, crying & screaming, "We're all going to die! I don't want to die!" Although she was also terrified, Cherry put on a brave face & comforted the girl -- talking her down & assuring her that they were NOT going to die. (which should have been my first clue that Cherry was a goner)

The following morning (last two minutes of the episode), the shooting/bombing had stopped, to their great relief. They'd made it!! It began raining, and one of the soldiers went outside to dance around in the rain in celebration. Cherry followed him, laughing, grabbed him by the arm, and said something to the effect: "You're crazy, get back in here, ya' big lug." She stood in the entrance for a second, looking up at the sky & smiling, letting the rain hit her face. She turned around to go back inside....and KA-BOOM!! The frame froze on her shocked expression, and faded to black.

A few moments later, we heard a helicopter as the picture faded back into an aerial view of China Beach, with McMurphy, KC, and the rest of the gang, waiting by the landing pad. It still wrecks me.

R28 = Ali MacGraw

Fry's dog.

Henry Blake's death.

Ben's death and funeral on Scrubs

Buffy's mother dying or Fred's death on Angel

Mark Green dying on ER

Hold the Door - GoT

A mother finding out her daughter was struck and killed by a drunk driver. Exceptional acting by any medium’s standard.

BJ's death on General Hospital. If you didn't fucking ball your head off when Tony laid his ear on Maxie's chest (or when Felicia found out WHO the donor was).....well, there's something very wrong with you!

On As The World Turns, when the character of Jennifer died. The acting of Colleen Zenk and Ben Hendrickson as her parents was exceptional, made even more poignant when you consider Hendrickson committed suicide shortly after in real life.

The day Shelley Hack showed up on CA!

Gary's death on 'Thirtysomething.' The scene with Michael on the pay phone in the hospital was crushing.

When Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin) slapped Alex (Glenn Scarpelli) on ODAAT and he didn't slap that bitch back ! What a wimp.

Rivaled by season 5, where we saw Mackenzie Phillips die a slow, long death right before our eyes. Truly sad.

R32- That was my mom's show and I hated AMC. (OLTL fan) but no joke- That scene with Julia Barr is just one of the most +true+ scenes I have ever seen. And I agree- its absolutely on par with the finest acting of any medium. She is a fine actress and probably the best actress that show ever had (and I know they had some fine actresses over the years like Kate Collins)

The "Eight is Enough" episode after their mother dies (Diana Hyland died in real life) and they find a Christmas gift she bought.

But the unforgettable moment within this set of episodes is the final scene. Tommy, who spent Christmas day alone in his room, is given a gift recently discovered hidden in a kitchen cupboard. It is a Christmas present purchased by his mother before she had died, set aside and forgotten. It is a reminder to everyone how thoughtful and generous their mother was--and an emotional reminder of her absence.

The whole family is reduced to tears as Tommy opens the precious gift. Despite this miserable Christmas day, the Bradford family is allowed one special last moment with their mother's spirit. Choked with tears, Tommy opens his gift--a book by e.e. cummings, his mother's favorite poet. (If you are not crying during this scene, you aren't human). Through his tears, father Tom reads the book's inscription to the whole family, giving everyone a chance to hear their mother's thoughts and affections one last time.

There was an episode in Star Trek, Next Generation I’ll never forget, even though it was maybe 30 years ago.

Picard is knocked unconscious by some sort of beam and wakes up to spend his next 40 years as part of an idyllic humanoid race on an obscure planet. Has a wife and family and is happy, but retains his memory of his life as starship commander. Anyway, the planet’s sun goes supernova and the planet and all it’s people are wiped out.

Picard then wakes up (was only unconscious for a few minutes). Turns out the purpose of the beam was to keep alive the memory of these now-extinct people, whose last act was setting off the beam. I wept like a baby.

R40, was that planet (or at least the part Picard lived in) sort of Middle Eastern looking? I remember seeing part of an episode that sounds like what you described, but I didn't know what was going on.

Candy’s funeral on Pose had me in tears the entire episode. When Angel simply said, “I’m going to miss you,Candy,” I lost it, & the attempts at comic relief throughout the rest of the ep didn’t help one bit.

The note at the end of Quantum Leap saying he never got home.

Mark Greene’s death. Just that song alone makes me cry.

R41 I looked it up and yes it was sort of middle eastern looking. The episode was called “The Inner Light”

R32 and R36 beat me to the first two that came to my mind.

The whole “The Body” episode of BUFFY also comes to mind.

When Binx dies in Hocus Pocus and Dani cries.

The last 3 minutes of Six Feet Under.

When Watson thought Sherlock had died

On Emmerdale, Jackson tells Aaron that he loves him ... leading into the accident.

Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

Mrs Hufnagel's final moments on St Elsewhere.

When the gang sing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" when they leave the newsroom for the last time on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show."

Thank you for summarizing Cherry’s death so well, R29. I was going to add that one.

The Body is a great Buffy episode, but Anya’s fruit punch speech is what gets me every time.

When Mr Hooper died.

The Six Feet Under finale. It still gets to me.

After rallying, Sid Fairgate dies.

I second R29. When Cherry died on China Beach, 12-year-old me cried. It was so shocking.

My mother came into my bedroom that night to tell me about losing friends in Vietnam and wearing a POW bracelet.

Have never been so affected by a TV drama episode since.

Came to say the same as R39, glad I was late, you did it beautifully, much better than I would have done.

Family Ties, "A, My Name is Alex".

Alex (Michael J Fox) is in a car accident with a friend. Alex survives, his freind doesn't.

During his grief, he cries, "Why am I alive?!?!".

I often wonder the same thing about myself and people I've lost.

13 Reasons Why, at a dance a year after Hannah’s suicide, the song is played that reminds Clay of her and completely broken he makes his way to the center of the dance floor, one by one his friends, who all bear some responsibility in her demise, make their way there to comfort, surround and hold him as the melancholy song heartbreakingly references “take me back to the night we met.”

Why did Bobby Ewing character die and then was brought back? What was happening in real life: was Patrick Duffy pursuing other opportunities that didn't work out?

Better Caul Saul: Howard's body getting tossed into the pit with his murderer.

[quote]Picard is knocked unconscious by some sort of beam and wakes up to spend his next 40 years as part of an idyllic humanoid race on an obscure planet. Has a wife and family and is happy, but retains his memory of his life as starship commander. Anyway, the planet’s sun goes supernova and the planet and all it’s people are wiped out.

The episode is called "The Inner Light."

It is regularly voted by fans and critics as the best episode of the entire TNG series - and frequently voted among the top episodes across all Trek series.

R62- Larry Hagman convinced him to come back to the show.

Another vote for BJ and Maxie on General Hospital. As a gayling, I was destroyed by this storyline. Nothing sadder.

Damn, damn, damn!

The episode of American Horror Story:Freak Show which showed how Pepper ended up in the asylum.

R44, I believe that episode is the reason I cannot listen to that ukelele version of OTRB without tearing up.

The first What's My Line after Dorothy's death.

I think the saddest moment of all time - the one scene which reduced me to uncontrolable tears - was when Alexis served Dominique burnt champagne. And then she had the gall to serve her Osetrova caviar ?

The saddest moment on a TV show - period.

That's, r62. Any idea why he left?

THANKS not that's

Animal Kingdom: Craig and Deran's final scene.

When Sun and Jin drowned on lost.

When Rachel Maddow announced she was cutting back to one night a week - and that Alex Wagner would take over the time slot. I wept for weeks.

Whe Laura has to watch nelly get paralysed on her horse Bunny. Shades of Wizard of oz hers as Harriet Olson takes the horse.

Not a TV “show” but a TV moment. For some reason I was watching this live even though I very rarely watch the Nightly News. What a loss.

Here is the photo

So sad 😥 I re watched this episode on Amazon recently.

When the Ricardos told the Mertzes that they were moving to Connecticut.

The episode of Cheers where they mention Coach has died. It almost feels like an afterthought, and there is something about it that captures real death very well. We're here, we live a little while, and then we die; and the rest of the world goes about their business.

This is also sad, as Vivian Vance was very ill and would die within a couple of years.

In the same episode, she and Lucille reenact a bit from their ILL days ("Smile when you say that.") That is probably the saddest moment of the episode to me.

Wentworth: Boomer helping Liz end her life.

Ooof that Peter Jennings clip 😢

i don't know if it was a tv show but i remember it was on tv and (the dog) benji's girlfriend got kicked by a bad guy and was in bad shape. i felt so sad i was almost sick.

THE saddest moment on Little House On The Prairie was when Alice Garvey dies in the fire at the Blind School- terrible.

The death of Edith Bunker.

R85, "Benji" was a feature film released in 1974. Benji's girlfriend, a dog named Tiffany, was kicked by one of the kidnappers. Yes, sad and disturbing, but Tiffany recovered.

I'm not sure it's the saddest, but when Mrs. Landingham died on The West Wing.

War and Remembrance when John Gielgud’s character is being led into the gas chamber and he looks back for one more glance at the moon.

R88- You are so GAY

R86, I think it was sadder when Mary went blind. That girl had no luck.

That episode of Gilligan's Island where someone came to island and then left -leaving the castaways behind!

Adorable little Mason Reese crying about "Cats in the Cradle" on "The Mike Douglas Show"

Season 1 episode of ER: Love's Labor Lost

Pregnancy turns for the worse and mom doesn't make it despite doctors and nurses doing everything they can.

One of the last scenes is shot from outside the room through a glass door, and we don't get to hear what Mark tells the new father/widower, just see his reaction. I've seen that technique used again in similar shows/situations but this one was really powerful.

When Mia Farrow chopped off her hair on “Peyton Place”.

When Ada died on Another World.

When Pedro died on the Real World.

When Falcon Crest ruined its reputation and legacy with season 9 (final season). OMFG 😱🤮

The ending of Six Feet Under was sadistically heartbreaking yet incredibly uplifting and even funny at the same time. What an excellent show that was. It was able to show all the beautiful nuances of life.

I'll add another thumbs up for the scene in The Big C where Laura Linney's son finds that storage shed full of gifts. I can burst into tears just thinking about that moment.

I found an episode of The Golden Girls where Blanche dreams that her husband has returned very moving. When she talks about how she finally got to hug him in her dream and how that made her feel. Rue was such a wonderful actress.

The American remake of the TV show The Bridge had some really sad moments

Sonya, the American detective drives around in a truck that originally belonged to her deceased sister. Her truck later gets T boned in a accident set up by a villian character. She gets injured and then goes to a junk yard and is told the truck can't be repaired. I know it's sounds weird, but Diane Kruger played the character's sadness so well that it was heart breaking that the character lost a vehicle that meant to much to her.

The other really sad scene was Marco seeing the body of his son Gus at the morgue.

R95 ooooof that’s a killer episode and I don’t even care about pregnancy.

Will Gardner getting killed on The Good Wife.

Ending of season 4 of The Wire

Jack and Rebecca Pearsons' deaths on This is Us. Jack's death was completely out of left field. Rebecca's was an absolute fantasy.

Marley and Me—when Marley dies

Sorry— that was a film!

[bold]This is Walter Cronkite. From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official....[/bold]

[quote]Knots Landing - 1987: Laura Avery Sumner (played by the lovely Constance McCashin) driving away from her friends and family in Knots Landing, so she could 'die with dignity' at a hospice, since there was no cure for her brain tumor.

Good choice. I remember her telling herself not to look back while she was driving off. Then there was the later episode with her videotaped farewells to her family and friends (and enemies; she had a great one for Abby), and it ended with Greg watching his part alone at the end. William Devane did a good job with big emotions we didn't usually see from him. That arc was definitely one of KL's best.

[quote]This began the "purge" of older actors and actresses leaving the show so the writers could bring in younger cast members and new storylines to keep the show in the top 10. Once they got rid of McCashin, veteran actress Julie Harris and then Donna Mills left the series in the next couple of seasons.

CBS was giving them a smaller budget and they needed to get money off the books. McCashin (a series regular from the start) and Harris (a veteran actress who also had been a regular for several seasons) probably made the most sense to let go, through a combination of salary and storyline at that point. Those two were released. Other departures in that era, Doug Sheehan and Donna Mills, were the actors' choices.

But I guess they thought Valene still needed a talk-to adult character living in the house with her, with her mother gone, so they brought on Betsy Palmer as Aunt Ginny the next season, and she stuck around for a while. A very similar character. Palmer probably came cheaper.

R109- Killing off Laura was a great storyline driver for years to come. The payoff was both immediate and long term. Noises Everywhere was a rare two partner episode that found the core cast together in a hot house environment. Knots could be maddeningly frustrating in how it kept certain characters apart for years on end (for example, Abby and Valene shared next to zero screen time together the last 5 years despite their iconic feud). This two part episode changed that. Long term, it set off into motion Mack and Karen raising Meg, Greg and Paige’s tortured romance, Abby and Greg marrying, etc. So good for the show.

Testament was technically a TV movie, although it was given a limited release to be eligible for Academy Awards and TV is where I saw it, so for me that counts. It deals with the fallout after a nuclear attack on a Northern Californian town as a family slowly dies. Jane Alexander is a mother of three whose husband never came home. The early teens daughter asks her what it like to love and make love to a boy since she’ll never know, and to be honest, she doesn’t hold back on the answer. The youngest, played by Lucas Haas, literally shits himself to death and she freaks out when they want to bury him in the backyard, but she can’t find his teddy bear and she doesn’t want him to be alone. And then she wants to kill herself, her son and the neighbor boy they’re taking care of, but the son ends up talking her out of it.

Gore conceding in Florida.

[quote]I'm not sure it's the saddest, but when Mrs. Landingham died on The West Wing.

The episode following her death, "Two Cathedrals," was West Wing's finest hour and Martin Sheen's greatest performance in that role (and one of his best even counting movies). Very moving. It really took chances, with Bartlet's Lear-like raging against the storm and untranslated Latin and all that, but they paid off. The actors who played the young Bartlet and young Mrs. Landingham in the flashbacks were perfect.

I don't know about the saddest, but the episode of Cheers in which Coach's daughter is jilted and breaks down over her lack of good looks has the most touching scene I can remember in any US show.

Season 4 of The Wire (the one about the children) is almost unbearable. I've watched the whole series three times, and every time I have to take a break before I can face starting Season 4. It's not so much "sad" as genuine tragedy. The longer it goes on the more inevitable the outcomes seem and so the harder it is to stick with, brilliant as it is. That Omar gets recalled from the place where he's happy is also a true revenge tragedy.

^ I regret that I have but one upvote to give.

Great moment when the Coach's daughter says she looks just her mother, and the mother wasn't beautiful, and she can't look at him and say that. She has to soften it by saying the mother wasn't "comfortable with her beauty." As much as I did like Woody Harrelson as the new "dim guy" on Cheers, I always missed Nicholas Colasanto. I think Shelley Long said she always thought of him as the heart of the show.

And yeah, so many moments in The Wire that season. It's the best season, but by far the hardest to watch.

This may be an odd one, but I was deeply distressed by Eileen Davidson's final scene on Days of Our Lives in 1998. Admittedly, her Kristen character had done terrible things but she was left shrieking in panic, captive in the dungeon of sex slavers on some island. The implication was that a great deal of sexual assault was in her near future. Horrible. Just send her to a sanitarium (that would have bothered me less).

[quote] She has to soften it by saying the mother wasn't "comfortable with her beauty."

"But that just made her that much more beautiful!"

Great episode.

I was saddened after Sesame Street's Mr Hooper died and the adults tried to explain to Big Bird what death was.

The episode of Vikings when Ragnar is put to death. There was a montage of his life, from the first episode, showing his wife, kids, brother, friends, his battles and it was devastating. A close second was Lagertha's death later in the show. When her body dropped down into the water and settled next to Ragnar, I was weepy. Honorable mention: Ragnar talking to his dead friend Althelstan.

You see I was a big Vikings fan.

CHINA BEACH was a great series, with many memorable dramatic and touching moments, but the finale episode where they all have a reunion and then go to the Vietnam Wall was beautifully done. McMurphy finds the name of the last soldier she cared for in Vietnam, and KC pulls up in a limo, lowers the window, and exchanges one long look at her adult daughter whose life she saved during the fall of Saigon.

^^ One of the songs played during that episode is The Eagles Try And Love Again. So poignant.

I've reached Rebecca's death on Dallas. I'm dreading it, OP. Very sad.

That M*A*S*H episode had me crying hysterically. And I was just maybe 11 or 12.

The show was on in syndication right after the local late news. I was watching and I really had no idea what was going to happen.

I was trying not to cry cause if my mom saw me she would think I was crazy, crying at something on tv.

Deans death didn’t hit until after multiple viewings. Hell, he had died so often I didn’t think it would stick and I expected him to be brought back.

r15 They did that on season 2 of eight is enough too when they wrote Diana Hyland dying into the story.

My So Called Life-The Our Town reading and the ghost girl.

When Timmy called Lassie (during credits) and then at the end the music would swell and Lassie would lift her paw.

Lots of Mister Rogers. I think it sewed seeds of depression in me, honestly!

Several episodes of Twilight Zone.

When Laverne realized Shirley was really gone for good because she took the Feeney family album and Boo Boo Kitty.

Hazel Bellamy dies of the Spanish Flu in 1918 at the end of World War One on Upstairs Downstairs . James was cruel to her as well.

If were doing soaps....Stone's death from Aids. Him being able to see Robin again after weeks of being blind due to the illness but immediately dying is the epitome of heartbreaking and sappy (in a good way) "Robin, I see you!!!!!!...oh Robin, I see you!!!"

Mary!

When they killed Adrianna.

When they cut Kinta's foot in Roots.

The end of Due South, with Stan Rogers song Northwest Passage playing.

Hopefully a better link.

Dylan's wife Toni dying on 90210 really got me.

LHOTP- tossup between Alice Garvey and Mary’s baby being burnt alive and Albert’s girlfriend Sylvia who suffered so much abused before her violent death.

Bernard fucking Cribbins! Wilf’s final goodbye to the 10th Doctor. 😭 😭 😭

See you at lunch tomorrow, Michael.

When the ER doctors tell Karen Fairgate about Sid Fairgate. Shot through the glass door, audience can only see and not hear.

[quote] THE saddest moment on Little House On The Prairie was when Alice Garvey dies in the fire at the Blind School- terrible.

What made it so especially sad was that she was a fighter to the very end, using that baby's head as a battering ram to try to get out of that burning building.

[quote] Dylan's wife Toni dying on 90210 really got me.

I always found that to be one of the saddest moments on the show.

The episode of "Three's Company" when Janet misunderstood something Jack did.

The last episode of Ricky Gervais’s After Life. A lot of it was sad, but the last episode was awful. It has a pretend ending that you might buy if you are pretty stupid. But the real intent is clear.

R4 you're right on both accounts. That's so awful! I was searching online for medical advice for my pet the other day and instead Googled up studies about which dose was lethal and which led to spasms and death by suffocation etc. in Guinea pigs, the animal I searched for medical advice on. The thought that gentle, feeling animals were tortured to death for nothing makes me sick. (That 150x the recommended dose force fed by syringe is lethal - who would have thought.) Unrelated, I know, but the plot outline just brought it back.

[quote] My So Called Life-The Our Town reading and the ghost girl.

For me it’s the episode with the Mother/Daughter fashion show. It could have been corny as hell but Claire Danes fucking owned the scenes where she’s telling the mother ‘you’re so beautiful and I’m so ugly!’

Cousin Oliver being hit by the car and dying.

Homer Simpson staring up at the stars for hours on top of his car after his mom leaves him again. It would be sad to see anyone like that but for someone like Homer who was widely considered nothing more than simpleton knuckle dragger, the fact that we get to see that private moment of his shows us he had a much more profoubd soul than we thought. Sniff.

The NewsRadio after Phil Hartman's death is still very sad to me.

All in the Family. Archie finding Edith’s slipper and breaking down.

From “The Wire”